Raspberry Pi Tracks ISS

Slashgear: This Awesome Raspberry Pi Project Can Track The International Space Station . "Around the web, there are various tools that allow users to track the International Space Station's orbit. The European Space Agency, for instance, shows the station's approximate location, as well as where it was 90 minutes back and where it will be an hour and a half in the future. An enterprising Raspberry Pi user, however, has been able to emulate the effect of this high-tech software using a humble ePaper display and some Python coding."

Ideas for Reflecting at the End of the School Year

This might be a good resource to share with teachers on the weekly memo as we enter the home stretch from the New York Times Learning Network. I believe that everything the Learning Network provide is available free and is not behind the regular NY Times paywall.


10 Ideas for Reflecting at the End of the School Year

Petit Nicolas Movies

There's a movie that is recently out - Little Nicholas Happy As Can Be. I've attached a trailer here.
https://youtu.be/cqni6H-952k

Takes place in 1960s Paris and weaves together the adventures of schoolboy Nicholas and his legendary creators, writer René Goscinny and cartoonist Jean-Jaques Sempé.

It's not currently streaming - I came across a listing on the Brattle Theatre website, where it's showing on Jan 16 (MLK Day). But perhaps it'll make it to some other theatres and streaming sometime soon.There are several PN movies


The animated 2022 movie may be available on AppleTV+? although it says here it's not available for streaming. I'm not sure it's been released in the US, although it was screened at Cannes last year.
https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/little-nicholas


Nicolas on Holiday is available from Apple TV for $1.99 and free a few ways. You can also rent from Prime video for $0.99 or buy the DVD from Amazon
It's here on YouTube https://youtu.be/uCRcGRS7DII for $0.99

Colleen Hoover Book Ratings

As you're probably aware, Colleen Hoover is ridiculously popular these days, largely due to her social media presence.


I don't have any of her books in the BMS library, nor do I intend to get them, as even the tamest are best for HS age students. But I've had fairly young students ask for them from time to time, and I hear from other school librarians that they've had kids come in to ask about some of the "activities" going on in the books and looking things up, and have needed to coordinate with the health teachers about materials. I have had conversations with students where I've told them that I don't have them because they're really pretty sexy and are for an older audience -- and they were surprised! Oftentimes they only know they are popular.

I found out today that Colleen's website has a list where it shows not just the order of all her books, but also rates them by age appropriateness, from 14+ YA to 17+ Mature (sometimes called "new adult fiction) to "WHOA - very mature/dark". I thought you might be interested to see this list in case you are having any conversations with students or families about her books. For example, the books on current bestseller lists, It Starts With Us and It Ends with Us, and Ugly Bones are all rated 17+ and Verity is rated "WHOA" as is the book she has coming out in June.

Op-Doc Movie about Patsy Mink

I'm in the middle of watching this 20 min. Op-Doc movie from the NY Times about Patsy Mink. It's fantastic! The director is Ben Proudfoot, who also directed the Queen of Basketball, which won an Oscar for best short doc, the Queen of Basketball, which I've shown to kids a number of times.


This film has a lot in it about 20th century history, discrimination and civics in a compelling personal narrative voiced by Patsy Mink's daughter. Great for AAPI Heritage month (which is part of the reason I'm looking at it)

https://youtu.be/faL6ERtj5oM

Refreshing the Canon

If you have certain touchstone books you like to recommend but are looking for some updated read-alikes, School Library Journal has a great feature, Refreshing the Canon, with recommendations for fans of:

• Hatchet
• The Outsiders
• Little House
• Little Woman
• Island of the Blue Dolphins
• and others that skew more toward HS readers. 

Some of the suggestions are books I have here, and others are ones I"m working on getting! Definitely some are more for HS in terms of content, so just be a little cautious about suggesting them to our younger students unless you know the book or have found out a little about it first. It may be helpful in terms of diversifying your classroom books too.

Cost of Education vs. Salary Infographic

Good infographic here

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/money-finance/salaries-vs-education-costs-of-50-common-u-s-jobs/

Portuguese Interface of Sora

The Portuguese interface of Sora is now live! To set this up, go to the menu (3 horizontal lines on the top-right hand side of Sora), scroll down to Settings then Language and you can change the Sora interface language. Other available language interfaces are Chinese (simplified & traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. 

Note that changing the language interface doesn’t change the language of the titles in the collection. It just changes the navigational words of Sora itself. (do remember that there are ebooks in a few languages of varying numbers).

May the 4th Be With You

If you've never seen it before, you may enjoy the 1978 spoof,  Hardware Wars (12 min.)

Read more about it

Massachusetts Reading Challenge

From the Mass Center for the Book:

Massachusetts Center for the Book in partnership with Massachusetts School Library Association is delighted to announce the inaugural Reading Challenge: Massachusetts Student Edition, a companion to the Adult Reading Challenge, which launched in January.

The Reading Challenge: Student Edition gives students of all ages a chance to set and meet the goal of reading a book each month in a specific category and to share their experience within their reading community.

We invite your library to host this Reading Challenge locally by signing on to become a Reading Partner using this form. This would entail:
- Promoting the Reading Challenge to the students you serve in your community. Attached you will find flyers (color and black & white versions) with the category calendar and a QR code linking to our the Reading Challenge: Student Edition page on our website, accessible here.
- Creating a way for students to sign up for the challenge and tracking the number of participating readers monthly.
- Reporting out to us once a month with the number of students participating, using this form.
- (Optional) creating an incentive plan to encourage students to read! Note that your library would be responsible for obtaining these incentives.

That's it! We ask that your library signs on as a Reading Partner by May 31. The first month students will be reading for this challenge is June.

Note that Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners is supporting the creation of a Beanstack component to this challenge, which will be made available early summer.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly at kzapal@massbook.org.